


Love Match

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, FitzSimmons Seychelles Holiday, Fluff, i'm the romantic one, romance to the death, romance-off, you think i'm not romantic?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 22:40:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7241713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>wakandandperthshire said: Please write a FitzSimmons romancing-off each other throughout the six months fic? :)</p><p> “How about this,” Jemma says slyly, leaning forward on her forearms so that the candle in between them flickers dangerously close to her hair. “You show me your idea of romance and I show you mine?”</p><p>Fitz regards her calmly, twiddling his thumbs in his lap. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into, Simmons.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Match

**Author's Note:**

> This got a wee bit out of hand and is a weird mix between headcanons and fic but hopefully you still enjoy!! :)

It starts out innocently enough.

Their first night in the Seychelles, Fitz pulls Jemma’s chair out for her and waits patiently as she sits.

She bats her eyelashes at him. “Oh how  _ romantic, _ Fitz.”

“Romantic? Jemma, please,” he scoffs. “That’s not romantic. That’s common courtesy. I’d do the same for my gran. And I’d expect you to do the same for me,” he chides, flapping his napkin dramatically at her.

She grins despite herself. “Oh, right, I forgot you’re the authority on all things romance.”

He shrugs humbly. “I’ve been known to woo now and again.”

“How about this,” Jemma says slyly, leaning forward on her forearms so that the candle in between them flickers dangerously close to her hair. “You show me your idea of romance and I show you mine?”

Fitz regards her calmly, twiddling his thumbs in his lap. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into, Simmons.”

The use of her surname is a pointed throwback to the Academy years when every waking moment of their lives was competition. She smirks.

“On the contrary, Fitz, of the two of us, I’d say I have an advantage. Your position on romance has been well-established. I’m rather a dark horse. The element of surprise is entirely on my side. Besides, you short-circuit any time I show you my breasts and there’s simply no male equivalent.”

“Whatever you say.” He pats her hand and opens his menu, but the way his knee is jiggling the table, she knows he’s already started brainstorming.

  
  
  


She waits anxiously for him to make the first move. For all her big talk,  _ romantic  _ really is a bit out of her normal range.

He doesn’t do anything until their third day, when he comes back from a suspiciously long afternoon walk with a single red rose.

“Really, Fitz?” she tuts as she accepts the flower. “I’m disappointed in you.”

“It’s classic!” he protests.

“It’s typical.”

She smells it anyway and keeps it in a vase next to her bed for half the trip, after which point she hangs it upside down to dry so she can take it back to the base with her.

She starts small as well, suggesting a moonlit walk along the water during which she never once lets go of his hand.

He scoots his seat over at meals so he can put an arm around her shoulders while they eat.

“Well,  _ that’s _ just not practical,” she huffs, pushing it off after she bumps it for the fifth time while trying to cut her steak.

The next morning she helps him shave. She takes the razor out of his hand and hops up onto the sink, pulling him by his pajama top to stand between her legs and tilting his chin so she can ever-so-carefully run the blade down his cheek.

His eyes are intent upon her and she only makes it through half his face before he’s whisked her back to bed and he’s getting shaving cream  _ everywhere _ .

He’s not really strong enough to carry her, but he tries, picking her up by the waist so that her feet skim the the top of the water when they’re out for a swim.

One day she reads something on a stupid website and lays naked, just a single ribbon around her waist, on the bed while he’s in the loo.

“Is this some weird bondage thing?” he asks, looking petrified, when he sees her.

“No!” she exclaims, then, curiously, “Did you want it to be?”

“I -- don’t -- I’m not s--”

“I’m your gift,” she explains shyly, plucking at the bow near her navel. “See? You have to come open me.”

He blushes bright red at the double entendre. “But Jemma, it’s not Christmas yet,” he stutters stupidly.

“Oh.” She looks down at herself and grabs for a sheet. “I’ll just -- forget I--”

He’s naked in five seconds flat and she beams at him.  
  
  
  
  
  


Back at the base, it’s a bit harder to be openly romantic. Jemma’s gotten so used to snuggling with Fitz even where others can see them and now it’s frustratingly tantalizing, having him so close in the lab all the time. She itches to reach out and run her fingers across the place where his back stretches his lab coat when he bends over his work.

He makes things worse by slipping notes into the pocket of  _ her  _ lab coat.

_ You look really pretty today _ , they’ll say. 

Or,  _ I love your smile. _

_ Have I told you how brilliant you are? _

_ You remind me of a young Marie Curie. _

She rewards him well for that one, even if it’s total bullshit.

She leaves chocolates on his pillow.

He does her laundry for her. (Damn, he’s good.)

She washes his dishes without his asking, even though she feels a bit indignant about it.

He gives her a footrub while she peruses a report he’s preparing.

(She accidentally kicks him in the face when he touches a ticklish spot.)

(“I knew you were competitive, but this...” he grunts as he holds an icepack to the bruise.)

On his birthday, she brings him breakfast in bed.

“Jemma, I’ve had a thought,” he muses as he licks syrup off his fingers (and hers). “How are we going to know when we’re being romantic for the competition and when we’re just doing it ... just because?”

“What competition, Fitz?” she says coyly, batting her eyelids innocently.

“You little minx, would you stop for a second? I’m serious.”

She pats his hand comfortingly. “Alright. How about we put a deadline on it? Say...six months from when we started. That puts us around late-November. Anything that happens after that is just us being our normal romantic selves.”

He takes issue with her suggestion that “romantic” is “normal” for her but they shake on it.

Jemma notices that Fitz has an annoying habit of working in romantic gestures without her even realizing. Sometimes she wonders -- and goodness does it frustrate her -- whether he’s not even doing them for the competition but out of habit.

He’ll play with her hair when they’re watching a movie and offer to hold her phone while she does double-fisted shots with Joey and Elena.

He’ll bring her tea, locate her missing socks under the bed, and pick up her print-outs before she has a chance.

She’s not sure she’s ever noticed how intently he listens when she explains what she’s working on, but if she’s learned anything from the silly American sitcoms he enjoys so much, it’s that most boyfriends are  _ not  _ that attentive.

They don’t always remember to do it. Sometimes their work is too hard. Sometimes Jemma breaks down thinking about Daisy. Sometimes they fight.

But most of the time, they’re neck and neck proving their romantic superiority.

She surprises him after an arduous mission with rose petals strewn on their bed and candles all around the room and her standing in the middle of the carpet in a lacy little bit of lingerie. He starts laughing, which was really not the desired effect, and he insists it’s because he can see the goosebumps all up and down her arms and not because he doesn’t appreciate the effort.

He  _ certainly  _ appreciates the effort she puts in once he’s gotten the lingerie off of her.

For his part, when she’s spent five hours in the med bay after Mack and May get into a nasty dust-up with some anti-Inhuman vigilantes, he draws up a hot bubble bath and kneels behind her as she slips into the water. He massages her shoulders and scalp until she starts snoring, right there in the tub.

She knows she was already responsible for the Seychelles, but she gets approval from Coulson for a week off and surprises Fitz with tickets to Scotland. They spend a full day in bed and his mum doesn’t comment on it once, bless her.

He tries his hand at packing sandwiches for her when she’s off-site. They agree to let Jemma handle the food prep. The next time he goes on a mission she’s included a banana and written cute little messages on it in Sharpie.

She buys a telescope and they spend a chilly autumn night stargazing.

They try out petnames.

“Munchkin?” Fitz suggests, his nose already wrinkling.

“No thank you,” Jemma chuckles.

“Monkey!” he exclaims, grabbing her waist.

“I’ll not have you sexualizing those poor creatures for the rest of eternity!”

“Melon?”

“It doesn’t have to start with ‘m’, Fitz.”

“Honeydew.”

“Is a sort of melon, yes.”

“What about me, then?” he huffs.

“Oh, you’re Dr. Fitzy forever.”

They watch  _ 10 Things I Hate About You  _ and Fitz threatens to buy a microphone and sing to Jemma in the lab one day. She knows he’s joking but she writes him a poem about all the things she hate-loves about him, like his eating habits which are those of a fourteen-year-old, his taste in shoes, or his imitation of her accent. It’s the first time she’s admitted that she likes that last one and he actually tries it in bed and quickly finds out there’s a limit to her affection.

One morning in November, she’s brushing her teeth when Fitz leans against the doorframe behind her.

“Hey Jemma?”

She hums and moves aside, assuming he wants to use the sink as well.

“Yesterday was six months since we started our romance-off.”

She laughs and nearly spits out her toothpaste. “God, we’re free,” she chuckles.

“We agreed everything past that date is just us doing it, just because, right?”

“Course.” She spits and swishes water around in her mouth.

“Good.” He clears his throat and waits for her to dry her hands. “Because... there’s something I’ve been meaning to do.”

When she turns to face him, he’s on one knee.

“Oh my god,” she gasps, knowing it’s cliche to clap a hand to her mouth and start crying but she can’t help it and she’s suddenly much more sympathetic to all the poor people in those proposal videos. “What are you doing?”

“I love romance,” he says, voice shaking slightly. “I love big gestures and I love surprises. I love showing you what you mean to me in every way I can think of. But so much of our relationship, so much of what  _ love  _ really is, is the moments that go unnoticed. It’s not the big ones with all the fanfare -- it’s catching your eye across the lab and smiling just because, it’s the way you laugh at my stupid jokes--”

“They’re terrible,” Jemma sobs.

“I know,” he chuckles. He glances down and wipes his hands on his trousers. “And it’s the way you brush your teeth in the morning, left to right in tiny circles. We’ve had a lot of big moments but I love the little ones. Which is why I wanted to do this now.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small box covered in dark blue velvet. Jemma has to cover her eyes for a minute.

“It’s okay,” Fitz laughs, though tears are shining in his eyes now. “Can I start?”

“Go, go.” She waves him on, swiping furiously at her cheeks.

“I don’t need to marry you to know I’ll be with you forever. Though given our record with the cosmos we could do with a bit more insurance. Plus it’d be nice to have the tax benefits, social recognition, blah blah blah--”

She swats his shoulder and they both laugh.

“I’m joking. Mostly.” He looks up at her, head tilting slightly. “Marrying you would be the big moment before the million little moments. It would bring me unbelievable joy. If I spend the rest of my life romancing you, it will not be enough, but I’d like to ask for it anyway.” He opens the box to reveal a simple silver band. “Jemma Simmons, will you go to prom with me? No, hang on -- that’s the wrong one, what was it I wanted to ask?”

“I’m going to  _ kill  _ you, Mr. ‘I’m the romantic one’--”

“Marry me,” he cuts her off, eyes shining. “Let’s be Fitzsimmons forever.”

She drops to her knees to kiss him and they don’t get the ring on her finger for another half hour.

They never discuss the results of the competition, but privately, Jemma is willing to concede the victory to Fitz.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr!!


End file.
